


Running Hot, Rolling Low

by icarus_chained



Series: Fraternisation [1]
Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Adrenaline, Aftermath, Comrades in Arms, Driving, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Soldiers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-05
Updated: 2013-01-05
Packaged: 2017-11-23 20:10:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/626061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icarus_chained/pseuds/icarus_chained
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maria Hill, James Rhodes, and a bar in a shaken, post-Avengers New York.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Running Hot, Rolling Low

**Author's Note:**

> I've been meaning to do this one for a while, and ... well. Here you go?

New York was a mess. Not that anyone had needed to tell her it would be, Maria thought tiredly. Not that anyone had been _surprised_. New York was a warzone, and it had reason to be, and she'd seen a fair few warzones in her time, and it could have been worse (could have been so much worse, she remembered the stunned, breathless cheer as Stark took the nuke past the portal, the nightmare so narrowly averted), but still ...

New York was a mess. And climbing gingerly through the streets, looking for somewhere still open to drown the jitters of the past seventy-two hours, for some reason it struck her more than it should have, hit her harder than it had a right to, when she'd never really had too much (any) attachment to the place.

But screw it. It was nothing some semi-serious alcohol and a solid twenty-four hours off duty wouldn't at least dent, if not completely fix.

The bar had been all but colonised by SHIELD. SHIELD, a few of the militaries, the national guard, a few of the flyboys down from Stewart Air Base with the SHIELD contingent. All of them mildly shellshocked, all of them here to see for themselves, to take stock, to try and get to grips. Part morbid curiosity, part victory defiance, part desire for reassurance. The usual, the mix. Familiar, in its way. Edged and jittery, but bizarrely comforting. They were here for the same reason she was. To connect, to remind themselves, to touch base.

"Vodka tonic," she ordered, crisp and brusque at the bar. Not looking around, barely even noticing who was around her. Not really caring, come to that. She was here to take the edge off the jitters, and she didn't need or want company to manage it.

But then she turned around, drink in hand, and met a rumpled Air Force uniform, a familiar dark face, tired and creased and blinking at her in mild surprise. A face she hadn't seen since ... hell, when was it? 2006, the Ridgecrest Rally. She'd lost a co-driver, needed a replacement. Found a mildly amused Air Force colonel on leave, willing to take a ride up the High Desert Trails with her. Cool, confident, good clear voice on navigation. Nerves of steel on the course. An adrenalin junkie, somewhere under the calm facade.

And very, very appreciative of a woman who could outshoot him, outdrive him, and take him on the ride of his life with only a roll-cage and her skill between him and death.

"Colonel Rhodes," she managed, her vodka and tonic half-forgotten in her hand, the vague memory of the laughing hitch of his voice as they kissed a corner on two wheels drifting forward, washing out the memory of shellshocked streets and the hush of a carrier bridge as Stark drove a missile through the sky. She blinked, something in the back of her head joining the dots, Stark to Rhodes to Air Force to New York, but most of her mind was back in that car, adrenalin and confidence and laughing camaraderie, and suddenly, quite abruptly, she decided she wanted more than a drink right now. 

Suddenly, she wanted a roll cage and someone else's skills between her and death.

"... Lieutenant Hill?" he managed, exhausted creases webbing the skin around his eyes, bemused and solicitous for about two seconds. The two seconds she needed to shove her drink into his hand and lean up to press her mouth savagely, desperately, to his. The two seconds she needed to wrap her hand in his shirt, sway somewhat desperately into him, and plunge into the memory of California in his kiss.

Then he wasn't so solicitous. Then he was shocked, startled, the vodka slopping over his fingers, his spine slamming straight and his free hand leaping up to grab at her arm. And then ...

Then he got with the programme, a man used to rolling with Tony fucking Stark, the man she remembered, hot and dusty and cheerfully appreciative in that California motel, comparing rally cars to raptors and making good use of the last of their adrenalin together. Then Colonel James Rhodes caught on, grief and jitters and nerves in his mouth as well as hers, and leaned in to drown them hot between them. 

He was a hell of a kisser, she remembered distantly. Wonderful mouth, Colonel Rhodes.

"Huh," he murmured after a long, dizzy few moments, pulling back for a few gulped breaths of the warm, close air of the bar. Smiling gently, that dry, calm facade, all the heat beneath it. "You know, I always wondered if you remembered me, ma'am."

Maria laughed, knotting her fist in his uniform tie, shaking her head against his collar. "I remember you fine," she told him, finally glancing up to actually meet his eyes, to find the understanding there, the wry knowing. "But you must not remember me so well, if you still think calling me 'ma'am' is a funny joke."

He grinned, his hand coming up to cradle the nape of her neck, rough and gentle. "Well, you never know," he murmured, that carefully hidden sense of mischief that had let him keep up with Tony Stark all these years. "With all your funny ranks over in SHIELD, I figured better safe than sorry. _Ma'am_."

And for the first time in over seventy-two hours, Maria felt the rush of temper for something that had nothing to do with a crisis, the giddy relief and lazy, appreciative challenge. Drawing his head down, utterly uncaring for the staggered catcalls around them, she cruised her lips over his, sank her teeth lightly into the bottom one.

"How about I remind you of my rank somewhere private," she murmured, low and careful, and let her stomach roll and softly tense at his soft, delighted hum of agreement.

Fuck it. As of two hours ago, she was officially off duty. And that meant she was free to spend the next few hours however the fuck she wanted to. If she chose to spend them with a dark, confident Air Force colonel with nerves of steel and gentle knowing in his eyes, that was no-one's business but hers.

New York was a mess. He was a mess. _She_ was a mess. But hell. That's what roll-cages and motels were _for_ , wasn't it?

And this time, just this once, she could let someone else do the driving.


End file.
